She worked industriously if not exactly with zeal, cleaning and mopping while Lowell was smashing and hauling. Occasionally they found themselves in the same room, whereupon they felt obliged to speak to each other. For this reason they usually managed to stay in different parts of the house. It was not particularly hard to do with twenty-two rooms to choose from, all of them in need of much work. They worked and thought. At least, Lowell was thinking. He hoped his wife was thinking too. Every once in a while, on one of his toting and hauling expeditions, he caught a glimpse of her in some room or other, standing at the window and staring at it with unfocused eyes. He assumed that she was thinking. There were two conditions to their reconciliation, if that was the word for it. The first condition was seemingly minor: his wife would work in the house only during daylight hours, and only if Lowell would personally escort her to the subway station when night fell and wait with her on the platform until the train came.
